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Replies to: Any tips for AP Environmental Science/AP Econ?

Focus more on APES than AP Econ. APES is one of the hardest AP tests to get a 5 on for a reason. There's so much stuff that's intertwined with each other and APES isn't just science it also includes government policy as well so it's pretty interdisciplinary. AP Econ is just a bunch of theory questions with hypothetical graphs and applying equations (that's easy for me)

AP Macro= what the government does with money
AP Micro= what the people around you do with their money

If you have access to the Friedland's AP Environmental Science textbook, read it. Read every chapter. On Facebook, there is also an APES study group. That helped a lot. I got a 5 without trying too hard weeks before the AP test because I had read the chapters throughout the school year. The book is pretty interesting too. Pay attention to the diagrams and pictures too, they'll help reinforce topics greatly. You literally have to know everything from every chapter, but if you're a good reader it'll be a piece of cake.

What helped me a lot also was using the Learn function on quizlet to learn like 100 laws. There are quizlets over the vocab for each chapter too. Make sure you know every chapter, though. Literally everything is on the AP test. Not kidding.

I got a 5 on the APES exam and I pretty much self studied. My teacher literally put on a video every day. I bought the REA Crash Course book and the Princeton Review book. Those were really helpful. I read crash course cover to cover and skipped around in the Princeton review. The good thing about the Princeton book was it had common environmental labs in it. Some FRQs some years ask you to design a lab for a situation and we didn't do any labs in class. Also, the Princeton book has two full length practice tests. VERY helpful, take advantage of it. My teacher took both of the practice tests and made those our final exam for the class. I was really happy about that. What I hear about Barron's books are that they give too much information and can be overwhelming. I didn't have tons of time to study so I avoided Barron's. The AP test wasn't too hard to me. I was surprised I got a 5 though. Most of the questions were simple and very common sense based. I left a complete FRQ blank because I couldn't even guess about it. But it wasn't too bad of a test at all. Read a review book or two and you should definitely pass.

Ahh thanks so much guys for all this advice!! Looks like I'll be taking APES for next year (hopefully the self-studying bit will go well!) Thank goodness I still have a couple months before I have to really worry about this stuff ;]

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